Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PORTALES — Senior guards Davian Lucero and Xodus Gomez set personal scoring highs on Tuesday night and Portales evened its record for the season at 1-1 with a 73-51 victory over Eunice at the Ram Athletic Center.
Lucero poured in 20 points, including 17 in the first half when the Rams opened a 43-26 lead. After scoring 25 points in the second frame, PHS weathered a five-point third stanza before running away with a 25-10 margin in the fourth period.
“Our kids came out and played really hard,” said Rams coach Randy McBroom, whose squad dropped its opener three days earlier 53-42 to Hereford at the RAC. “We’re growing as a team. Our goal was to do more things right tonight than we did (against the Whitefaces).”
Lucero also had a team-high eight rebounds while Gomez, who shot 7-for-10 from the floor, added seven rebounds, seven steals and three assists. “He had a monster game,” McBroom said of Gomez.
Senior guard Markus Aranda finished 10 points for Portales, and senior center Emmanuel Diahn tossed in nine.
The Cardinals (0-1), who were led by 12 points from junior Ashton Thompson, were forced into 29 turnovers.
“Our defense is really cooking,” McBroom said. “We’ve got some great athletes, and they’re playing hard.”
PHS, which was in the Farwell Invitational this weekend, returns to action on Tuesday with a 7 p.m. tipoff at Clovis.
Jefferson leads Lady Cats to win — Junior post Kailyn Jefferson poured in a personal-best 24 points on Tuesday night to lift Clovis High’s girls to a 55-44 victory over Artesia at Rock Staubus Gym.
Still, veteran coach Jeff Reed said the Lady Wildcats, who improved to 3-1 heading into the Rio Rancho Invite over the weekend, aren’t playing to the level he’d like.
“The middle two quarters were fantastic,” Reed said. “But we really have to do a better job with how we start and finish games.”
A Lady Bulldogs 3-pointer early in the second segment sent Clovis into a 13-3 hole, but the Lady Cats scored 16 of the final 18 points in the half to take the lead. They then dominated the third canto 22-10 and eventually built a 20-point advantage down the stretch.
“Right from the start, we were killing ourselves,” Reed said. “We knew we had a good game plan against their 1-3-1 (zone defense). Once we started executing, we did some good things.”
Junior guard Zarai Lewis added 13 points for Clovis, while the Lady Bulldogs (3-2) got most of their damage from senior guard Koda Beltran with three 3-pointers and 17 points and junior post Lorin Wagner with 14.
After this weekend’s tournament, the Lady Cats are idle until Friday when they face Cibola in Albuquerque.
